


a backwards wing

by 23notecanon (reincarnivore)



Series: you broke time [7]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Not KH3 Re:Mind Compliant, very crisis core inspired, you do not necessarily need to read the rest of the series but you might be confused sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reincarnivore/pseuds/23notecanon
Summary: zack and cloud are friends. sephiroth has regrets.---zack had died once, so why don't you give him a hand remembering, cloud.
Relationships: Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Series: you broke time [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529372
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't read 'i dont know whats happening', Nexahs=Xemnas+Ansem(SoD). he is no longer afflicted by darkness and does research in 'Utopia', which is The World That Never Was but brought into the light. Edym is Demyx. 
> 
> i am not entirely sure where I'm going with this fic yet. i am fairly certain it will involve characters primarily from Crisis Core.

Cloud swipes his wooden sword ahead of him, grunting alongside with his soft, growing voice. The air whips around the blade with the force of his thrusts; held to his wrist to help the motion, Zack breaks into laughter, “Yeah, just like that!”

“It’s heavy.” With a bead of sweat collection on his brow, Cloud replies, heaving it back up to his shoulder with strain.

“A metal one is heavier,” Zack says with a smile across his lips. “Gotta start somewhere! Use that weight to your advantage.”

It’s a beautiful day in Radiant Garden, and while Zack doesn’t often visit, he makes a point to see at least two of the kids that skitter around when he does, if not the whole cast of children that call this eden home. Well, ‘kid’ might be pushing it; Cloud is at least in his mid-teens, and Zack barely above adulthood. He had caught the younger boy sitting alone a bit too often for his tastes, and kept poking him until he got some reciprocation of friendship. He’s got two girls that hover around him, one less so than the other. Aerith makes friends with Zack too, but Tifa is a touch more skittish. Yuffie appears sporadically to hang off his arm while he does squats, pretending it’s helping with weight training.

Cloud keeps heaving his sword upwards and letting it fall with a mighty woosh of air, trying to at least direct where it lands. There’s a wooden plank ahead of him he’s been working on getting through, but it just bounces off uselessly with each misplaced attempt. Sighing heavily, Cloud speaks, “I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere.”

“You are, for sure!” Zack gestures to the tiny knocks in the wood, “You gotta start somewhere. Build up that muscle! You hit that thing over and over again- one day it’ll split.”

He stops to stretch out a shoulder, “One day  _ I’ll  _ split.”

“Probably not,” Zack pats a comforting hand on his shoulder, reaching up to ruffle a gloved hand through already unruly blond locks. Cloud’s head jostles to the side as Zack continues, “I know you’ll be a big tough guy one day. I can see it in your eyes!”

He looks up to him with a raised brow, soft blue eyes reflecting in the noon sunlight. He’s a smaller boy, that’s for sure, all muscles bound in tight, lean ways. Guaranteed to run a mile without breaking a sweat while he’s helping his mom with the daily menial chores, but nothing like the raw strength easily seen beneath Zack’s flexing bicep. Looking at the massive blade hitched to his back, it’s no surprise that Zack is well experienced in over-sized, heavy weapons. When Cloud thinks about it, though, he had never seen Zack pull that particular sword down and use it. It is pristine, shiny and nearly new, its hilt decorated in gold etchings. Instead, a different greatsword lays to a side wall, its blade knocked with use. It’s smaller though, and Cloud thinks one day maybe he’ll ask why he doesn’t use his bigger blade.

Cloud huffs, shrinking back his head as he’s assaulted by an affectionate hand and brushes Zack away with an arm. “I’ll keep trying, I guess. It’s the best I can do.”

“I remember what you said last night. Your dream! You want to be a hero, right?” Zack levels his hands on his hips as Cloud has enough of his roughhousing, smiling down at him brightly.

“I guess.”

“ _ I guess! _ “ He exclaims, leaning down to get eye level with his impassive friend. “I know you got more oomph in you than that.”

Cloud laughs softly under his breath, “Maybe about twenty swings ago.” As they talk, Cloud continues to whack the board ahead of him, small pieces breaking off where he has managed to hit solidly several times in a row. He’s getting weak, though, as Cloud’s arms shake to lift the blade up and over his head.

So, Zack reaches to snag it on a downswing, pulling it away from Cloud’s grasp, “Then it’s break time! Don’t want to over-work those muscles- or you’ll just be too sore to work out tomorrow. Let’s go get a drink, maybe we can do something about your legs…” He tilts down to stare discerningly at the hems of Cloud’s dirty pants.

“My legs are fine, thank you,” he replies, shaking out a skinny limb.

“Once you can beat me as squats-” Zack does one for good measure as he speaks, “ _ then _ , your legs will be fine.”

“I could out-run you in a mile,” Cloud playfully sneers, finally letting his wooden weapon be taken.

Walking towards the walk-way walls, Zack sets the wooden sword down to lean there, picking up his other weapon and settling it alongside his larger blade on his back. “Well, maybe that’s your niche then! You could be super fast, and agile.”

“Is that… useful?” Cloud questions timidly, tilting his head up at Zack while they walk back to the city center.

“Of course it is! …Well, maybe not if you want to use a big sword like I do, but-“

Crossing his arm over his chest, Cloud leans back to peer at both swords as they walk. “Mnn, I’m kind of partial to the sword part…”

Zack waggles a dismissive finger at him, “A big sword does not make a big hero!”

“From what I’ve seen, it kind of does. What about your one friend, what’s his name? The one with the wing, that comes from the castle sometimes?” The one who never, ever talks to any of the Radiant Garden natives, and is partial to hanging out in the barest of dawn perched high on the parapets of the castle. They can all see him up there often, his extravagantly long silver hair catching the light as it drifts in the wind.

Zack squints to that- not out of a lack of recognition, but because he’s not sure what Cloud’s getting at. “Who, Sephiroth?... Yeah, he’s got a big sword alright…” Rubbing his chin, Zack silently wonders which sword weighs more, though.

“ _ And _ he’s fast.”

“...How do you know that!”

Cloud hesitates to respond, but with a shrug, “I watched you and him have a fight one night in the badlands. He kicked your ass.”

Zack takes a step back, hand pressed to his chest aghast. “He did not kick my ass!... and _ you _ aren’t supposed to be going out that late, especially not  _ out there _ .” Reaching out with a hand, he waggles a finger dismissively at Cloud’s face.

Scoffing to that, Cloud closes his eyes and shrugs, only stumbling over his feet a little. “I’m not scared of monsters. There haven’t been any monsters in Radiant Garden since before my mother was born, she told me so herself.”

“Things can change.” For a moment, Cloud swears there’s a break in Zack’s stalwart visage- but only a moment.

It catches the younger boy a blip of hesitation, though. “Did you see any monsters out there?”

“… Nah, there isn’t any monsters out there,” Zack throws his hands behind his head, shrugging. “But it doesn’t hurt to be safe.” Zack laughs, “I bet you make your mother worry constantly.”

“Mmm, maybe a little. She’s not a baby, though. Not like Aerith’s mom, always hounding her to stay home.”

“Yeah, “ Zack scoffs to Cloud’s dismissal of his mother’s feelings, “but Aerith never comes home with scraped knees after trying to climb up the side of a rock face to spy two big losers fighting in the desert.”

“I don’t think you’re a loser,” Cloud replies weakly, ducking his head down.

“Ohp- well!” Zack gives him a humoured, apologetic look. “It doesn’t matter. Sephiroth- he’s kind of a… different, story.”

“He doesn’t really come around to talk…ever.”

“I think he’s a lot like you, really. Just… “ With his hands still resting behind his head, Zack’s eyes half-lid in thought while they walk up the stairs towards the main roadway. His gaze adverts to the clouds overhead, “I don’t want to say ‘shy’, but.”

Cloud nods, “But, shy.”

“You both don’t have a lot of  _ trust  _ in people.” Zack’s eyes fall back down to Cloud, but the boy is looking ahead of them.

Huffing, Cloud’s expression dips the barest annoyance on the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to give what I haven’t been given, so why be friendly.”

“That’s fair. But, just like you, Sephiroth’s got a soft part to him.”

“He’s gotta, or else why would he keep _ you _ around.” Cloud laughs softly, finally looking back as Zack’s expression falters. 

He looks very contemplative thinking about his ‘shy’ friend that would rather watch the action of humanity from afar. “Same reason you do! I, don’t really give you, or him, much of an option but to hang out with me.”

“You give me more option than Tifa does,” Cloud scoffs, but a small smile breaks across his lips. He doesn’t mind when Tifa bothers him- mostly, at least. She’s a good sparring partner, or was, until she started routinely beating him in a punch-out. It’s why Cloud had started hitting up Zack for fighting advice in the first place, though he would never try to fight Tifa with a sword. That part just sort of came with the territory that was learning to fight with Zack.

There’s a long moment of silence while Zack stares Cloud down, but the boy is comfortable letting them linger there while Zack muses over a thought. “Huh. I don’t know why I never thought of it, but you two would probably hang out real nice. Just, sit there all silently and brooding.”

Cloud straightens to that, finally looking over at Zack staring. “I’m not brooding…”

“Well, _ he _ is.”

Offering him a flat look, Cloud scoffs, “I dare you to say that to his face.”

“Maybe I will! Despite us play fighting in the badlands- Sephiroth wouldn’t ever hurt me.”

\-- 

Nexahs stands at a computer console, freshly built and all shiny and new. To the left of him sits an impatient Vexlica, who transmits the coming event for Ansem the Wise over gummiphone, and behind is Edym who is barely cognizant of the situation on a nearby chair. Nexahs speaks to the phone beside, voice booming Edym from his stupor, “If my math proves correct, as me and Vexen have designed it; if I can channel enough Light and Nothing from Utopia’s new heart, I believe I could convince even the most basic of dusks to remember and hold something akin to their original form. It would be a long fall from a Somebody with heart, body and will together, but the perception of ‘humanity’ could be a start to either finding their heart from the memories that others may have of them, or to regrow one and become themselves once more as they remember.”

Ansem replies, sitting in the Radiant Garden castle with his legs crossed and a book propped up on his thigh, dutifully writing notes. “That seems reasonable. But I’m somewhat worried that some of your nobodies might be resurrected as people who were… less than kind or personable.”

“A good objection, yes,” Nexahs speaks as he continues to type into his console, having not received a hard ‘no’ for his efforts. “I am well conversed with my nobodies at this point in time. Any I would plan to experiment on would be ones I’ve had deep conversations with. Though I might have said that any dusk could be held to this experiment, I would be far more inclined to revive ones that feel a strong basis in reality that they could hold onto. If I converted any old dusk into a somebody-like counterpart, it may hold for a short period of time, but the unchained memories could dispart them into their nothingness once again.”

“So it sounds like you already have candidates to try this on? Some dusks?”

“Well…” Nexahs hums, eyes lidding in thought, “a few dusks, a berserker, a samurai or two…. One large thing that Saix had found deep in a blackened world, some time ago.”

Ansem questions that last part discerningly. “… Some… large thing?”

“Something I had thought Marluxia created, though it sounds like Lauriam now does not recognize it. It is shy, but friendly and talkative. I think it must have been a friend of his, so I’m somewhat eager to try it on them to see if I could reunite Lauriam with a friend. It would be a very good experiment to whether the chained memories of someone else’s heart would help revive ones that are lost or destroyed.”

“So, it-, they would be your first test?” Ansem corrects himself on the pronouns, still learning to treat the lesser nobodies as people rather than mindless creatures.

“Maybe not them, no…” Nexahs hums, eyes squinting shut as he stops to think. “Are you ready to allow me to proceed now, or do you wish to travel to Utopia yourself to oversee this?”

“This all seems very fair to me, Nexahs. I will remain on call and ready to leave at a moments notice should something goes awry. I’m sure Vexen will be apt to assist you.”

The replica grumbles in response, sitting with the phone barely resting in his fingers. “Like I have a choice.”

“You agreed to come.” Nexahs remains incredibly patient with him- his knowledge is invaluable, but his short-term memory is still spotty and around three days at best. He helps Nexahs’ work out of boredom rather than anything else.

With equal disdain to his first quip, Vexlica raises an eyebrow while his gaze drifts, “I don’t remember this.”

Nexahs can only laugh, low in his throat, “You wouldn’t. Do you at least remember where you are?”

“The… World that Never Was? But someone turned the lights on.” It’s a beautiful day outside. Behind them, the wide open windows are draped over with the greenery that clings to the Castle that Remain’s outside walls, but the sunlight still filters through enough they barely need the lights that hang overhead.

Edym snrks, looking over the edge of his gummiphone at the permanently confused replica. “Close enough,” he shrugs when they lock eyes, the replica giving him a dry, frustrated look. Why is Demyx on the science floor, anyways.

Nexahs interrupts them before they can start snipping out each other, “So you will stay on call while I attempt my first trial, Master Ansem?”

“I can do this for you, yes.” Vexlica takes himself and the phone to the console where Nexahs stands, holding it in a way Ansem can see what they’re doing while assisting in preparations.

It’s always hard to get over the nervousness of the first trial of an experiment, or it sure it nowadays. If this goes catastrophically wrong, it will likely go one of two ways. They reconstruct a somebody who is quick to darkness and apt to attack them and anyone around them out of fear or genuine hostility. Or, they destroy the nobody host- and Nexahs is terrified of the thought of killing a friend he has been making over the past few months. They, however, are all very eager to try his experiment. He mumbles to himself, “Who first, though….” Many voices reply their interest, little timid whispers in his head. Slowly, Nexahs turns to Edym. “Edym.”

He had still been watching them, reclined in his chair, and Edym shrugs in response, “Yeah-huh boss?”

“Don’t call me that.”

He sits up fully, looking at him with a coy expression. “Yeah-huh, bro.”

Dryly, Nexahs’ expression stiffens, “… No, that isn’t better….”

“Nexahs what do you want!” Edym shrills.

More than used to Edym’s antics, “Oh- yes. Help me decide.”

“Uhh… Which nobody?” His lips purse in thought, rubbing the underside of his chin with the back of his knuckles and nibbling on the edge of his phone. “Uhmmmm….. None of my dancers… Incase, y’know, it _ explodes _ .”

“Duly noted. It won’t explode.” Very quietly, Nexahs speaks under his breath, “probably.”

“… A berserker.”

There’s a moment of silence. “Are you saying that to spite Saix.”

Edym immediately responds, “A little, yeah.”

“Rude.”

“Hey now- I know there’s a berserker who really wants it! You know him! He’s so excitable, like a puppy. Do the puppy.”

Nexahs rests his chin on the underside of his hand in a similar way Edym does, staring at him with half lidded eyes. “And you wouldn’t lament if the puppy  _ explodes _ ?”

“… Maybe a little, but like. Anyone we’ve been scopin’ out would be sad if we lost them. So, gotta bite the bullet- and you _ just said _ they wouldn’t explode!”

He’s not wrong. This particular nobody would be an excellent example of something held well onto its will. Nexahs is already fairly sure there’s someone out there waiting for him- if not many someones. With an anxious sigh, Nexahs rights himself to full standing, closing his eyes to peruse the thoughts of the nobodies around him, until one perks in his mind. He speaks aloud despite talking to a being somewhat far away. “Would you come? Edym has decided you are to be offered first chair.”

Edym yells again, sitting high up in his chair with a flail of his arms. “.. Hey! Don’t blame me!”

“I have to blame someone. Have I ever admitted my own crime?”

Ansem replies to that quietly from behind the phone, “No, you have not.”

Nexahs laaaughs, and between that low chuckle, the air fills with thorns, and a berserker appears. It vibrates in similar anxiety, but not like it fears the coming experiment. More that it’s eager to experience success, or the failure if that may be the case. It doesn’t fear the destruction as much as it might relish that someone after it may succeed instead. Of course, it would _ prefer _ to live the experiment, and become something akin to its old, forgotten personhood. This one has been sacrificial before, Nexahs thinks, and remembers over a year ago when they had plucked him from the ground like a kitten when he was sick.

He stares the berserker down with a furrowing brow, sighing. “I do not know whether this will be comfortable or not. It may be incredibly painful, it could be euphoric. It could feel like nothing.”

They respond, rumbling a deep baritone in their minds. -I am used to nothing, old master.- Shifting on their legs, however, it’s clear to see the muted hesitation. A foot drags across the floor, though no sound comes from the motion.

“This is true. But you aren’t used to the other two things I listed.”

-… maybe….- They shrink back slightly, gripped hard to their weapon. This one was very clingy to their claymore, rarely dropping it. A bit like a security blanket, Nexahs thinks, they, or ‘he’ Edym said, could have had a weapon he was attached to in life. As he remembered bits and pieces of that memory, he became more and more attached to the claymore, even if it’s merely a stand-in for the original weapon. -I am strong. I will eagerly make this sacrifice.-

“I know you will. I have worked very long and arduously on this project. I strongly do not believe I will fail. You are so strong willed, and even stronger now as we talk. I know you will come out on top of this.”

-Yes, old master,- he nods along with Nexahs’ speech, empowered and unafraid.  _ Mostly _ unafraid.

Perched upon the console is a massive tube, fit for holding a creature three times the berserker’s size to fit any nobody Nexahs could think to jam inside of it. It thrums with energy as the initial protocols start up, Another inside the console sifting through lines of code to make sure everything is aligned nice and neat. Vexlica joins Nexahs side now, looking over the dialogues in time with the program inside, and between the two of them, Nexahs hardly fears something slipping by. As long as his equations were all inputted correctly, that is. He can only hope that Utopia’s new heart will be inclined to help them with its excess energy. With the test subject placed inside, there’s no room for hesitation now, and with a last few offered promises to the hardly remembered name of Luxu beneath them, Nexahs flicks the switches to start his new device. It pulses disconcertingly, shaking the floor beneath them, and the tube is overcome with harsh, red light when it fills with Nothing.

It all seems to be going… perfectly, really? And Nexahs isn’t sure why he’s surprised- he had gone over all the equations hundreds of times. Just that lingering anxiety that never seems to leave him, and isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if he keeps it in check. In a short five minutes, a timer chimes like a bell tolling, and the energy subsides. Biting down on his lip, Nexahs looks on in barely contained impatience, and Edym slinks up beside him to watch. In the tube, there appears to be a figure, looking significantly more human than before.

With a hiss, it opens, and a bare foot steps out, weak on his legs. Nexahs offers him a hand, but in the blink of an eye, he warps from existence- which is incredibly _ inhuman _ of him to continue doing. “Uh-oh,” Edym speaks quietly, as the three of them plus phone Ansem sit in silence, their nobody disappeared into thorns.

He reappears again after some twenty seconds of absolute silence a few feet behind them, shaking in what could be pain. Swiftly, Nexahs turns around to see if he can catch him, but stops when there’s a hint of recognition. Ansem can’t see from here, but Nexahs speaks, “I… think this is someone from Radiant Garden, but I… don’t know who…” Damn his incredibly sparse memory- but he also thinks this is someone he might have barely met.

Of course, he is without clothes, that is no surprise to any of them. Where he stands and shakes like a pitiful dog, a white wing protrudes from his back and wraps around his waist defensively. It’s held all wrong sprouting backwards between his shoulder blades, almost as if it has been placed upside down, the wing tip pointed up towards his nose as it curls around his front. When the fresh nobody finally remembers to breath, the air hisses past his teeth and into his lungs wet and painfully, immediately wracking him with a wheezing cough. Edym nods to that, casually approaching to give him some solid whacks to the back. “Yeah, buddy, breathing really sucks when you didn’t do it for like, years.”

Between his coughing, a voice rasps, harsh from disuse, “It, it hurts, I’m, it’s so,  _ I’m tired _ .” Rather not speak and rip his throat, he wraps his arms around himself, groaning softly with each breath. He constantly rouses his upside down wing, reddened sore eyes looking about in a new, unknown light.

“Ahhh-“ Nexahs approaches him, shrugging off his lab coat to offer him any mote of comfort, but that wing raises and deflects, uneager to be approached by more of them. He even whaps at Edym now, and he takes a step back at the insistence of that flailing extra appendage. 

Taking a few steps back, the previous berserker shakes his head no, but opens his mouth to speak again. He looks around vacantly, thinking. “I want to go home.”

“Please stay here-“ but it’s too late. In another flash of thorns and loose feathers, the nobody disappears.

“…. Oops!” Edym exclaims, hands falling to his hips.

“Who was he,” Ansem breaks in from a distance, his phone balanced precariously on a nearby table where Vexlica had placed it to turn off the machine when the others had left it. Ansem hadn’t seen the figure clearly- just that white wing and a shock of black hair.

“I’m not sure,” Nexahs replies. “A pale humanoid, with black, pulled back hair,” he gestures alongside his description, even though Ansem can’t really see. “Fairly spikey, as are most Radiant Garden inhabitants. I want to say, blue eyes? He seemed so incredibly familiar… A wing…”

“… That does seem familiar, yes,” Ansem muses, “I’ll have to ask around if that description holds. Of course, if he said he wanted to go home, perhaps he’s already come right here? I see that despite the human-shape, he was still quite able to mold himself more like a nobody would.”

“Yes, that was very disheartening to see,” Nexahs mumbles to himself, rubbing his jaw with a nervous palm. “I did not expect that uncomfortable of a transition. I suppose- this human shape is a façade, though. They are still nobody, too far from their heart to call for it. I will not continue my experiments until we have located him, and ascertained whether not these conversions are a viable replacement to real reality.”


	2. Chapter 2

Memories flood back like molten lead in his skull, splashing across the raw edges of his newly re-formed mind. Instead of helping in any way, it just makes him feel weak and unguarded, unable to access his memory in anything other than rapid, nonsensical sparks. But, as a nobody, he’d been to many places, so it’s not as if he knows nowhere to pop out into. This thought isn’t ‘home’ persay, but was home for some time at least. Somehow, the unchained memories of his time as a berserker connect with a time he might have been human, and when he escapes the harsh blinding whiteness of the lab, his still malleable body twists through the alley of nothing until he blinks out in a much darker place on the guidance of his piecemeal memories.

Not the realm of darkness, though- that place he avoids like the plague for reasons spanned between both memories. Mostly, a nobody in the realm of darkness is apt to be swallowed by it. No, this place may be plagued by the dead, but strangely enough remained easily walked by the living. When he wasn’t _ apart _ , he doesn’t remember often going to this side of Olympus, but he had come here at least once right when he was being dismantled. It feels nice here, then, surrounded by the dead when he’s on the veritable edge of either side. He lives a straddling point between life and death, disparted and all.

It’s so strange to look down at his hands- distinctly, hands, fingers, pale flexing digits under his control. So, the master’s plan had worked. He regrets now that he immediately ran for it, confused and scared, but now that he’s found himself sitting back against a rock face in the Underworld, alone and able to focus, the berserker takes a long silent moment to collect himself. Himself, he repeats mentally; somehow, he feels like a ‘himself’. No longer a mindless tool or empty creature. There’s little comfort in that, unfortunately. In fact, there isn’t much anything but the realization as such, as he’s still empty of heart and void of emotion. He hardly notices when a figure approaches after an unknowable length of time passes, but can’t decide what to do about it, so he simply turns up his head to look with dull, expressionless eyes. Vaguely, he wonders what his name used to be, as the recollection of it evades him, along with the memory of the faces of his friends. Who stands ahead of him now was no ‘friend’, but he does know him.

“Hey, chump, who let you out? Dead man walking. Or, sitting, I ‘spose.” A sudden voice pops him out of his stupor, but the berserker barely looks to see the face of a looming figure over where he sits. Weakly, he blinks up at the fire-headed behemoth of height, slowly recognizing him before his face perks with timidness, the wing wrapped around his bare self tightening around his chest. He isn’t dead! Mostly. He’s just lost. His mouth opens to speak, but no language comes to him, and he just clicks his teeth before casting his eyes to the ground. “Jeez louise, life is rough for you empty-types, ain’t it.” Hades has the barest read knowledge of Nobodies, enough that he can spot one in a crowd, but not caring enough to catch the ins and outs of their existence- other than the fact they  _ don’t  _ belong in his Underworld. His half-lidded, bemused gaze trails down Zack’s body, “You aware you’re, ahem, indecent, chum?”

He looks down at himself and his apparent nudity, his wing reaching around himself again to vaguely cover his crotch. He’s been naked for years, so no, he hadn’t really noticed it or registered the detail as ‘indecent’. Looking up to Hades again, the barest frown crosses his lips, though the god barely notes the change in expression. 

Scratching his chin, Hades muses, “... I do know you, don’t I.” Slowly, the berserker nods. Before, when he was alive, and later while he was dying as well. 

Hades taps his chin as he mulls over his options- normally, an interloper in the Underworld was treated with immediate destruction, but a thought of recognition had him momentarily staying his flame. Sure enough- Hades knows well this man should be dead, had seen him dying, but here he is, in mostly human looking proverbial pants. No ghostly visage like those who forever circle the drain to the furthest pits of this place, but a real physical thing. Maybe? As expected, his existence slips through Hades’ fingers. No heart, his string of fate  _ unraveled _ more than it was  _ cut _ , so he can’t be controlled the same way he would the other prisoners of the Underworld. At least, not by conventional means. He’s worked the ‘persuasion’ rodeo once or twice before, however. “Heya, do you remember that you owe me a, y’know, favor?” The god points a discerning finger down at him, tapping the tip of the berserker’s nose.

He doesn’t remember, so after a pause of thought, he shakes his head no.

“Too bad for you-  _ I  _ remember. Not to mention you’re sitting here, loitering like a nobody vagrant in my turf. I should have destroyed you- but I am a  _ kind _ and  _ gentle _ servant of the dead. I’ll offer you a deal first.” A wide, sharp tooth smile spread across Hades’ face as he impatiently waits for an answer.

Again, his eyebrows furrow in discontent. He could just leave and find somewhere else to recollect himself on the overworld of Olympus- but if he owes this vaguely familiar figure a favour, maybe he should return it? Laying his palms flat on his thighs, he looks up at Hades as eagerly as he can- but despite what the berserker thinks he’s doing with his face, Hades has been seeing not much more than a turn of pale, vacant eyes up towards him. 

Hades lets that moment pass in silent confusion, but, “Well, you aren’t disappearing in a puff of smoke, so I’m gonna take that as a ‘sure’. You useless? Do I still got time to change my mind?”

Hmn, he might be useless. With a heft of his weight, the berserker stands, and while it’s uncomfortable, he manages to balance. It helps when the extra appendage on his back flexes out to help, though it sheds white feathers across the dark, rocky ground beneath them, and leaves himself bare to the cool air once more. Like it had been before his transformation, the berserker has trouble moving each leg separately, and as he walks, one foot constantly drags behind. 

This just has Hades staring more incredulously. “Alright, maybe you’re not the big warrior you used to say you were. I need a fighter! Not a… drag-er,” he gestures loosely to the dragging leg.

I am too a warrior! He thinks, and instinctively reaches over his back for his weapon- but alas, nothing is there. While he’s still blinking over his shoulder, Hades’ hand reaches over the empty space, fingers wiggling.

“Don’t you remember? Oy vey- you gave your big honkin’ sword to that kid.”

Kid? The berserker tilts his head in mild confusion; he remembers many kids, but not giving his weapon to any of them. Flexing his fingers a few more times, he returns his arm to his side, his mind and expression going empty as he mulls over his memory.

“Life is a cruel, cruel mistress to you piece-meal bits, ain’t it. Jeez, think it might be better if I just, poof, getcha outta here while you’re fresh-”

Before Hades can finish that thought, the berserker remembers ‘its’ weapon now, and in a twisting of thorns, his berserker claymore appears. Though it’s uncomfortable now to twitch his form to his weapon’s insistence, he hops up on the curved tip of the blade, an arm wrapped around its hilt. His eyes rise to Hades again, who stands a step backwards when the thorns had started unfurling. “Well, would you look at that. So you might not be so useless, huh? I’m always looking for more people to throw into the ring- you’ve been there before, so what’s another toss, huh?”

He does not recall being in any rings, and at the thought of ‘rings’, looks down at his hand.

“No-” Hades barks, “not THAT kind of ring! I mean a battlefield!”

Oh! He’s been in many, many battlefields. More so when he was not… this, though. He remembers sparsely, fighting when he wasn’t _ apart _ , but it was just a very distant, broken memory; far more battles from his time as a berserker come to him. Since he’s stuck with his claymore, however, maybe it’s good he remembers more of being a berserker, and slaps it with an open paml as he looks back up at Hades expectantly. If it means re-owing this unknown favour he apparently has, then sure! He can fight in some battle-ring. Again, even, if he is to believe what Hades is telling him.

“Atta boy! Keeps you outta my gutters, too. I’m not sure what you empty-types would do to the spirits if you started…. Co-minging.” He wiggles his fingers at the thought, eyes squinting. “I didn’t even think you types ever made it down here.”

He’s not wrong- most nobodies did avoid coming down into the Underworld, as it’s a place for wayward souls with no will to collect in abundance. Sort of the anti-nobody, really, rather than the opposite-nobody a heartless was. It was more of a superstition than it was genuinely harmful to their non-existence, though, so the berserker has no disconcertion towards staying. He nods to Hades, slapping his weapon again and awkwardly bending at his knees a few times; he vaguely remembers ‘enjoying’ that, but it just makes him look like an impatient puppy. “Alright, alright, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Fights tonight- gotta give me some time to get you a pair of pants that fit, too- as much as you don’t seem to care, there is a lot more of you out than most people care to see. Glad I don’t have to go scrap the bottom of the barrel for someone to give Herc’ a hard time. Doubt you’re gonna give him even a scrape- but maybe he’ll feel bad when he crushes you into a pretzel and you disappear into a puff of smoke.” 

He might think that’s an ominous warning, but as his berserker body re-settles into nonexistence with simply a more personal outer shell, emotions still evade him. 

  
  


He balances what might look like precariously on the tip of his weapon as it gradually inverts itself in the air in impatience, but it seems that gravity is of no consequence to him. Panic and Pain stand beneath him as he slowly rocks in the air like a pendulum, upwards until he’s upside down, but his hair and fancy new clothes stay pinned ‘down’ like his center moves with his feet. They’ve been told to ‘keep him here until the tournament starts’, now above ground at the recently renovated and shiny new Olympus Coliseum. Thebes had put a hold on tournaments for the past few months, but the heroes call for battle can not be silenced for long. Many scramble for the chance to become the next big thing- though none come close to Hercules as he retains his godhood. He still enters for sport, though, and that’s where Hades sneaks in his star fighter. Since he’s technically fought before, ‘Zack’ finds himself entered into the fray easily, regardless to the fact the last time he showed his face around Thebes was over ten years ago, now. 

“Would you sit still!” One of the scrambling demons cries up from him on the floor, but ‘Zack’ does not notice. Zack, Zack, Zack, he repeats in his head, after he’d heard the name uttered from both Hades and the satyr that had taken his submission in. So familiar, but so far away. Apparently,  _ he _ is ‘Zack’, but he doesn’t feel like Zack, at least not yet. He feels another name, on the tip of his tongue, but it isn’t his name either, maybe a friend he would have held close to his heart. Maybe he  _ is _ Zack- or was, but since it’s been years since that was whispered into even his peripheral hearing, it felt like a non-word out of disuse. He’ll have to go back and ask his old master- but first, he would be in a fight for the sake of his owed favour. Preferably, he won’t die, but he’s unsure the strength of his opponent, and Hades wasn’t really giving him a feeling of confidence. There’s a quiet, distant voice echoing for him to not charge blindly into battle, an old friend with scathing advice, but equally he feels the thought he would have ignored his friend when he wasn’t _ apart, _ too. Something gurgles up from his throat, a raw noise that hurts when it spills out of his lips, so unknown to him he immediately stifles himself with a hand. 

“What’re you laughing at?!” the demon barks at him, but he’s floating above them so far that neither can reach. “Stay still!” Laughing, was he? Does he remember humour? How to joke? In a twist of thorns- and a wholly  _ inhuman _ contortion of his body, he disappears into the nothing, to the audible fright of the two demons. Since Hades had clothed him, he had managed to figure out how to drag the fabric along with him, but each time he travels it frays the edges of each hem. As he warps around to tease the demons, it makes short work of the unwilling new outfit he’d been gifted so graciously. He reappears a few feet away, uninverted but still on his weapon, rocking back and forth on its curved tip. Bored at this point, having had waited some hours, he isn’t interested in sitting still, but he isn’t about to run away from his obligation, even if he doesn’t remember it. It doesn’t mean he can’t toy around with the squirrely underlings of the underworld while he waits, however.

Finally, Hades reappears in a gust of smoke. Quickly, Zack returns to a neutral position where he had been left instantly, as if he hadn’t just been leading his two demons on a wild goose chase, but their laboured breath tells its own tale. “You two are idiots. Zack! Buddy, pal,” he slaps a hand over his shoulder, and he gives the god a vacant, untelling look. ”You’re up. I got you a few little baby rounds to start with- which should be no problem for you!” He nods his head, probably not. “Then, the big leagues! A genuine, no holds round with Mr.Pretty Boy himself.” The barest cant of his head, a silent question of ‘who’? “.. Herc, Hercules! Y’know, the guy you’re gonna fight for me for that favour you owe me.” Oh! He nods as enthusiastically as he can, which appears to be not at all. Hades eyes squint discerningly, but if the kid hadn’t run away yet, he’s getting the hint that his constantly deadpan expression has nothing to do with his actual intent. “... Yyyeah. So, you’re gonna do me a favour and somehow, miraculously win, or at least explode  _ really cool lik _ e when you die.” This is less appealing, but Zack shrugs, and nods. Hercules, it sounds so familiar- but not with a fight he thinks he can’t win. More like a sparring partner that was definitely tough, but not unwinnable. 

The first fight goes easily. It’s a skinny man, perhaps lean with muscle from farmwork, but nowhere near hero-itude the berserker was expecting. He hadn’t even required to blitz; any swing of his weapon had the other man skittering away, and while Zack dragged his leg with each step to catch up with him as he ran, the match was soon called off when the other man was incapable of doing anything but run and scream. There’s no sense annoying the crowd with a spectacle like that. 

The second fight is somewhat harder, but still nothing to get him into a real sweat. One swing of his claymore, though, and Zack’s opponent is flung into the seats to the side, rendered unable to stand. It takes Zack a while to catch someone when they’re running, with his dragging leg keeping him slow, but when he does, they’re no match for his brute strength. 

This is what gets the third fight going; for the life of his non-existence, the berserker can not catch her. But, unlike the fearful man before her, the woman occasionally dips into an unguarded spot in his vision, and keeps stabbing holes into the side of his ribs. There’s a hush whisper to why the strange man doesn’t seem to _ bleed _ , but he does flinch and cry in pain every time he gets caught. He’s not afraid of losing though, however. He just needs to up the ante a touch. 

Overcome with a harsh, red glow, his body vibrates in agitation. Though his form is no longer eager to shrink and disform as much as it once did, he wraps his arms hard around his claymore as it sparks with energy, blinding his eyes- but he doesn’t necessarily need to see where he’s going. Caught off guard by this flex of unknown magic, the woman makes the mistake of standing there in a momentary stupor, and by the time she gets the idea to move, the berserker has already spun and flattened the blade of his weapon into the ground two times. It leaves a massive crater in the fresh stonework beneath him as he approaches rapidly, and she just barely escapes on the third pound before skittering to the edge of the ring and throwing in the towel. He was in the wrong bracket, it seems, and while it takes a moment for him to contain himself after his rage, the berserker settles back down onto his weapon, looking around at the cheering crowd. Or booing- he can’t quite tell what the yelling and exclamations mean, but since his opponent has fled once more, he drags himself to his end of the arena, sinking into the shadows of an archway to await his final battle. 

When he steps out into the sunlight once more, the crowd is uncontainable as Hercules rounds the ring, minding the gaps in the ground as he waves and greets those at the front. The usual hero business, Zack thinks; shaking hands, carving his signature on stone tablets. This was a show for him more than a real fight- or it was supposed to be. The final winner of his beginner hero tournament was supposed to get a chance to toe with Hercules for a few minutes. He would generally give them a good wrestle before ultimately pinning them without an ounce of effort given, the tables were turned when an outed semi-finalist appeared in the waiting rooms being dragged away with broken ribs. He’d read the roster, ‘Zack’, and gods that sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until he’d seen his opponent's face does Hercules expression darken, eyebrows furrowed as he turns from the crowd and looks him over. 

Slowly, Herc looks the disparted man head to toe, a momentary pause before he speaks quietly, barely above the heat of the crowd around them. “Gods- Zack, is that really you?”

Is it? He drags his legs and his weapon alongside, to the side of the ring where’d he’d been told to stand and wait before. He offers Hercules the disturbing canting of his head, body wobbling in restraint when he does, remember, Hercules. Wow! He got so big! Again, that strange noise burbles out of his lips, but his voice sounds a bit away from natural, despite the obvious laughter.

This only makes Hercules look more dire, taking a step back from him. “Are you real?” He had remembered the stories from Sora and his friends- people who looked like people, but were ‘hollow’, imitating the memories of the lives they had. He also remembers Sora telling him he shouldn’t trust these people for anything. 

… Well, technically, is he real?… Slowly, Zack shakes his head, ‘no’. No, he is still a nobody, and nobody are not ‘real’. He tries to give Herc an empathetic look, but his face is just expressionless, eyes vacant as he barely shrugs shoulders. 

“I can’t let you hurt anyone else, if that’s what you intend to do here.” Slowly, Hercules moves to his side of the arena, facing him down. Chest to chest- but only because Zack had perched up on the curved tip of his blade. “What happened to you,” he speaks quietly enough no one else would hear them, but Zack can still only shrug in response. His mouth opens to speak, but words fail him, and he closes it sharply shut once more. “Are we going to fight?” Herc offers his old friend one chance to back down, but Zack nods. He had to fight, unfortunately. He needs to get this favor off his back. Before Hercules can decide to throw the match in favour of his uncontained emotions, the berserker flips on a dime, attempting to flatten him before he can get the first shot in. 

Unfortunately for him, Hercules was absolutely nothing like the last fighters- or like he was when they were kids. A forearm immediately deflects the blade and sends the berserker flying with an audible, echoing clang of metal, but he catches himself with a foot hard in the air before he hits the ground. The crowd gasps when gravity unapplies itself to him entirely, as he floats and rocks in stuttering movements to reset himself, but before long he’s slamming his claymore back into the ground. It’s like a jack-hammer, and each crash into the stonework sends dirt and debris flying, but Hercules is unphased. He waits for him to arrive, and when the claymore slams into the ground a half foot ahead of him, Hercules reaches forwards to snag it out of the air. Unfortunately for Herc, the claymore continues not to care about gravity, tugging the godling out of the air with him as he rises, but Herc is still quick on the draw. He places his feet on the tip of the blade alongside Zack’s, riding out where the berserker seems to be more interested in continuing his programmed attack than paying attention to what’s taking a ride with him. Usually, the berserker's body would be teeny tiny and hard to hit from here, but he’s still Zack-sized at the moment and clung to the hilt of his blade, and in between thrusts, he’s reminded to pay attention to his surroundings when a fist slams directly into his head. 

Immediately removed from his weapon, the berserker goes flying while his claymore clatters and stiffens to the floor at a strange, impossible angle- Zack is just barely able to catch himself in the air with a foot to avoid slamming his face into the ground. His nearly forgotten wing flexes out awkwardly to balance himself, flipping itself on his back like it’s trying to fly him away, but he’s got himself rooted in the air by his dragging foot. Not eager to give him a moment to collect himself, Hercules jumps to grab him by an arm and pulls, but he’s stuck in the air, and the pressure of being pulled apart makes him yelp in pain. Since it’s the only time he’d seemed to genuinely react to something, Herc lets go, but he’s interrupted on the way back down when the claymore rushes back to its owner, and slams into the godling’s back on the way there. It knocks the wind out of Herc, and almost falls him to his knees, but he’s up again in a heartbeat. Good timing, too, because with his weapon again, the berserker unhooks himself from space, falling down with a flip of his weapon and overcome with sparking, red magic. It’s harder to deflect this time, but since we’re playing with magic, Hercules taps into a bit of his own, and when the immortal stamina of a god flows into him a glowing ochre, the berserker becomes absolutely no match. When his weapon is grasped again, its lack of gravity means nothing, and he’s flung to the side of the arena with a clatter of metal. Having never been so wholly removed from unreality like that, the berserker stumbles to his feet- but he isn’t ready to die yet, and he’s too stupid to throw in the towel. Not to mention, that wasn’t a part of Hades deal. He charges again, a twisting volley of thorns in his wake, but the crowd is rendered silent when, as Hercules charges forwards to meet him, the battlefield is overtaken by a wide ring of magic, circling and sparking into the ground.

Caught on Hercules fist and Zack’s claymore, the Masamune somewhat struggles to keep their dual strength contained beneath its length. At its hilt, Sephiroth leans hard beneath him, all three wings flexed out in discomfort as he pushes them both apart. It only takes a second for Hercules to recognize the surprise fighter, and he backs off instantly, uneager to fight him or Zack, let alone both at the same time. Once Hercules releases, Sephiroth effortlessly pushes Zack away, but does not fling him into the sidewall. Unsure of how to deal with an interloper, the berserker resets himself, idling his weapon beneath his feet as he stands and stares, rocking gently on its tip.

Catching his breath, Hercules eyes wander to the slowly falling black feathers surrounding them, “I don’t think anyone called you. You know him?” He gestures loosely to Zack.

He doesn’t reply at first, only looking back to Zack as his old friend stares at him with a complete lack of recognition. Softly, however, “A surprise to see you standing.” His eyebrows furrow just barely when Zack remains silent, simply staring vacantly.

Herc speaks to settle the confusion, however, “I don’t think he’s  _ real _ .”

“No?” Sephiroth looks barely over his shoulder at the godling behind him. 

“He said he wasn’t… Well, he didn’t say it. He just.. Nodded, I guess. If you know him, this might not be ‘him’.”

“If it wasn’t him, I would not have known to come.” Slowly, he approaches Zack at the sidelines until they’re face to face, but the nobody doesn’t shrug. The crowd is absolutely flummoxed by this turn of events, so Herc moves to turn on the charm, waving to the crowd and exclaiming his victory due to unforeseen circumstances. With any other battle, they might be annoyed, but Hercules comes with the benefit of being their big, pretty hero boy.

  
As Zack and Sephiroth give each other the coldest looking staredown, an instinct hits the nobody raw in the pale spark creaking beneath his ribs, and he nearly trips forwards on his weapon when he wraps his arms hard around Sephiroth’s waist. His spine immediately stiffens to this, wing flaring in distaste, but he manages to ignore his instinct to shove him into the dirt. “Ohhh,” Sephiroth hums, “You are _ definitely _ him. Puppy, puppy.  _ Let go. _ ” But he refuses, Zack just planting his face into his chest. Slowly, he raises a hand to Zack’s throat, pushing until he can manage to dislodge him, but it’s almost worse when he looks down and sees the saddest vacant face, eyes glittering with the onset of tears. Sephiroth’s slitted pupils wander to the wing on Zack’s back, a pathetic white appendage that sits nearly upside down between his shoulders, the feathered tip of it poking up from behind his head. “You forget that I had killed you, it seems.”


End file.
